


Invention of love

by UlsPi



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Falling In Love, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Love at First Sight, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Rhaegar Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:14:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29612019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UlsPi/pseuds/UlsPi
Summary: Jon Connington has been reading his entire life so he learned long ago that each person experiences love as if they had invented it, had been the first to discover it, and perhaps had he read a bit less, he wouldn't have felt that way, but judging by the sheer number of the authors who insisted on that notion, it would be only natural for him to feel like a dashing explorer the first and only time he fell in love.However, all those authors fail to mention that a dashing explorer, a glorious inventor might be tortured with said invention or discovery. One sails way in search of a paradise and ends up on the shores of hell, for example. One sets off to climb the highest mountain only to discover that the yearning for something more hasn't stopped. One would be forgiven for thinking that one must be the very source of one's problem, but the mountains are beautiful and so are the seas. This metaphor has been going on long enough.Jon Connington falls in love his very first year in Oxford.Fair warning: this is not Rhaegar friendly.
Relationships: Jon Connington/Brynden "Blackfish" Tully, Jon Connington/Rhaegar Targaryen
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Invention of love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [janie_tangerine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/gifts).
  * Inspired by [and, darling, we could be happy after all](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13921419) by [janie_tangerine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine). 



> If you please please please could be kind to me, bc it's the first time I'm writing for this pairing and I love it so much?..
> 
> I own nothing, Jon Snow. The title is from Tom Stoppard's play of the same name.

Jon Connington has been reading his entire life so he learned long ago that each person experiences love as if they had invented it, had been the first to discover it, and perhaps had he read a bit less, he wouldn't have felt that way, but judging by the sheer number of the authors who insisted on that notion, it would be only natural for him to feel like a dashing explorer the first and only time he fell in love. 

However, all those authors fail to mention that a dashing explorer, a glorious inventor might be tortured with said invention or discovery. One sails way in search of a paradise and ends up on the shores of hell, for example. One sets off to climb the highest mountain only to discover that the yearning for something _more_ hasn't stopped. One would be forgiven for thinking that one must be the very source of one's problem, but the mountains are beautiful and so are the seas. This metaphor has been going on long enough. 

Jon Connington falls in love his very first year in Oxford. The man is his flatmate. He's breathtaking and otherworldly, Jon's silver prince, Rhaegar Targaryen. His eyes are intensely blue that they appear to be purple, and his hair for some reason is indeed silver. He has the air of a prince indeed, but he's not arrogant, not at all. If anything, he's benevolent, he's kind, or so Jon thinks because he's barely twenty and he yearns for love, for the real thing, not a fantasy, not a book he's used to get lost in. 

Rhaegar studies law and history. Jon studies finance and accounting - because, again, he wants to do something real, something that has nothing to do with his dreams and aspirations, since his only dream and aspiration is to be a good man and find love. He grew up lonely and he wants a family. He wants a family with Rhaegar.

As the years go by, Jon finds solace in being a loyal friend, a shoulder to lean on and cry on. He isn't ready to tell Rhaegar how he feels - he wants to be able to offer something to his silver prince, something other than love and devotion. Something _real._

Rhaegar quickly abandons law and concentrates on history. His family don't care because they are very rich and Rhaegar's father is much more interested in tormenting Rhaegar's mother, of which Rhaegar doesn't speak much - and Jon understands, at least he thinks so, until he realises that Rhaegar doesn't care. It's understandable too, Jon muses. 

His own studies progress well. He's clever and he's hard-working. It helps him, being distracted from Shakespeare and Wilde in favour of accounting. There's a beauty to the numbers, there's a beauty to every damn thing, and at some point Jon realises that a well planned financial strategy has more integrity to it than Rhaegar Targaryen…

It doesn't happen that fast, though. At first, Rhaegar gets interested in the books of prophecies. It's an exciting topic, Jon agrees, it helps understand the way people used to think and justify their cruelty. 

Rhaegar is immersed in his studies. He's beautiful like that. He's noble and curious and every good thing, isn't he? 

Rhaegar becomes obsessed with prophecies. Jon suggests he takes a break, rests, clears his head, talks to someone, but Rhaegar dismisses him with a warm smile that suddenly gives Jon the creeps. Jon wants to be faithful and true, even if he's not so sure anymore he wants to do anything with Rhaegar other than persuade him to see a doctor, which Rhaegar dismisses. 

Rhaegar gets involved with a smart girl who's a promising mathematician. Jon doesn't like her, but it's not because he's jealous, he understands one day. It's because he's worried about them. Elia isn't worthy of Rhaegar as in, she's a scientist and is of weak health and Rhaegar needs someone who'd be able to take Rhaegar out of this worrisome preoccupation with the prophecies. 

Of course soon the prophecies begin to concern Rhaegar _personally._ Nostradamus turns out to be all about Rhaegar, for example, as is every other book, but thankfully not the Bible. 

Elia decides to talk to Jon and Jon hears himself telling her that she's not safe with Rhaegar. She squints, then smiles sadly. 

"Only a heartless person would fail to see how much you care for him. Just saying. I expected you to be jealous, and here you are caring about _me_."

Elia is pregnant, Jon learns. It's Jon who takes her to an abortion clinic and helps her change her number and move back in with her brother Oberyn, who is suave and propositions Jon on the spot, that is once he's dissuaded from having a very one-sided conversation with Rhaegar's face. 

Oberyn is protective but he's not overbearing. He's… free. Jon envies him a bit. 

All this is too much for the five years of Jon's life. 

Rhaegar barely notices Elia's absence, Jon doesn't bring her up - especially after it turns out that Rhaegar is destined to become the father of a messiah or something along these lines. Rhaegar doesn't stop being charming, much to Jon's in hindsight naive surprise. He's read so much. Doesn't it mean he can read people well, armed with so much shared experience? And was everything he saw in Rhaegar just a dream of a young man hungry for love? If anything, Rhaegar scares him now. 

Jon keeps sharing a flat with him, although Jon is about to graduate and leave Oxford to start his career in the City. He doesn't want to work for the family business, so he's come up with a good pretext to at least delay it - he tells his father he wants to gain enough experience to be able to successfully take over from his father when the time comes. As far as Jon is concerned, the time will never come. It's the least of his worries. 

Rhaegar brings home a girl much younger, a first year. She's eager for knowledge, she's pretty tired of being pampered and having to behave and she wants to rebel in all the wrong ways - to have unprotected sex, to date someone she shouldn't date (Jon is the last person who'd say such a thing, but Rhaegar is in no condition to date someone, let alone someone as impressionable and stubborn as Lyanna Stark), to follow her foolish young heart into an adventure that shouldn't be had in the first place. Not like this, anyway, not with Rhaegar. She gets pregnant, she runs away from Rhaegar at night, Jon drives her all the way to Glasgow where her family lives. He doesn't stay long. 

Rhaegar is angry and upset about Lyanna, but thankfully he doesn't try contacting her. Jon might have told him something along the lines of _she doesn't deserve you_. 

Jon has to think this sentence over later, when he stares at his tea, the irony being of course that Rhaegar would have eagerly told him what his milky oolong is trying to tell him. Something about Rhaegar saving the world, no doubt. 

Does Jon deserve Rhaegar? The answer used to be a humble no, but now it's more like Jon doesn't want to deserve Rhaegar. He's a man grown, he doesn't want to be an accomplice to Rhaegar's questionable actions, to say the least, he doesn't want to drive another girl to an abortion clinic or back to her family. He doesn't have any other friends - and is Rhaegar still his friend even? Has he ever been? Or was it just Jon, idealistic, impressionable and stubborn, who decided to be all noble and faithful and knightly? Does _Rhaegar_ deserve any of it? 

He's far from thinking that Rhaegar is a bad man. It's more complicated than that. Rhaegar is obviously unwell, Rhaegar needs help that he wouldn't get from his family, Rhaegar needs help that he refuses to have anyway, and Jon thinks he's had enough. He feels older than his all ancestors combined. 

Jon doesn't have it in him to tell Rhaegar that he doesn't trust Rhaegar nor himself if they go on sharing the flat, so he invents some other reason and moves out and to London. He learns of Rhaegar's death from the news.

Apparently Rhaegar went after Lyanna, his friend Arthur Dayne went with him, entirely sure that he was saving Rhaegar's child from a neglectful mother. 

Lyanna's highschool sweetheart Robert Baratheon killed Rhaegar when he was trying to barge through the front door of the Starks' manor. Arthur died when Lyanna's brother Ned made an attempt at talking some sense into Arthur and Arthur attacked him. 

Both the Starks and the Baratheons are very influential families, so of course no one went to prison. 

And Jon, he blamed himself for it. 

Lyanna called him afterwards. She said she kept the pregnancy and named her son Jon. She wasn't ready for motherhood, she says. Her brother and his pregnant wife adopted Jon and she's going back to Oxford. 

Jon's father dies as quietly as he lived, and Jon thinks he's had enough - enough of everything, of trying to be good, to be loyal, to be faithful, to be a hero. He's a sidekick, at best. He doesn't like it, he wants his own epic, but that's how things are. He sells his father's firm and makes sure to invest wisely. As soon as it's all over he goes back to school. 

If books are his greatest delight, he's going to indulge. He studies Shakespeare, he ends up teaching Shakespeare too. It's good. It's liberating. He doesn't think he can do anything he doesn't like, not after Rhaegar, not after doing his bloody best to live up to every character he's admired. The academia gives him a chance to read and to write and to study and to teach. 

The time speeds up, and before long Jon's red hair has enough white for him to be called a silver fox. He dates a bit. He learns he's a demisexual. He learns it's alright to be one. He's the best friend with benefits anyone can wish for, because he's understanding and kind and never jealous. He reinvents love. It's not exactly love, not as he used to picture it, but it's good. It feels so good and so right to have an emotional attachment to someone without becoming blind to their faults, without binding himself to them to the point of losing the sense of being a whole person without them. 

And then… Then Blackfish comes.

His name is actually Brynden Tully and he's as legendary as it gets. He's traveled the world and made the most compelling, most fascinating films about the wild life and humans destroying it. He's sassy, he's smart, he's funny, he's sassy. He looks like a seasoned warrior, like a knight who's seen it all and kept his sense of humour. His hair is salt and pepper, his eyes are piercing blue.

Jon has seen him on TV and he doesn't care much, but when he comes to Oxford to give one of his amazing lectures Jon can't resist it. His students insist he should come, especially Jaime Lannister who broke away from his family and his not so secret flame Brienne Tarth, the fiercest and bravest and noblest soul Jon has ever met.

So he finds himself in an auditorium filled to the brim with eager people, and Blackfish comes in. 

He's openly gay and he's very sassy about it as well. His homophobic brother can't get a break because Blackfish has BBC on his side and his brother has… well, the Bible perhaps, but BBC is stronger. 

Accidentally, his niece is Ned Stark's wife, so it's a bit too close to Rhaegar, but then…

Then Blackfish enters the auditorium, and before he starts talking he takes off his tie as if it had been strangling him. Jon hears the rustle of fabric, he follows Blackfish's movements, enchanted, hypnotised. 

He's minimalistic, very much so. There are no wild gestures, nothing of the kind.

And he's taking his tie off, eyes cast downwards. The tie smoothly slides under his collar and then Blackfish discards it like nothing and takes a look at his audience.

He has a beard that's more like a laziness to shave, and he's so very very handsome. He's so handsome that a simple thing like taking off one's tie seems like the sexiest act Jon has ever witnessed. 

He decides to concentrate on why Blackfish is called so. He has a good memory, so it doesn't take too long for him to remember that it's because he smokes, like black smokers and is definitely enamored with the organisms who thrive there. 

His hair is wavy, it barely reaches his shoulders. His shoulders are broad and deliciously - heavy. He could crash Jon in his arms, and damn, those thighs are a thing of beauty, a treat to behold. He talks about dodos. 

"They were exterminated. Remember _that heroic achievement_?" He asks. 

Jon doesn't remember ever being horny. He's so horny now that it's embarrassing. He's not a young man anymore, he's a scholar, he's a silver fox and he's horny for someone called Blackfish. It's as if Rhaegar had never existed. 

Blackfish's voice tastes of dark stout and chips, of comfort, of strength, of reliability. 

Blackfish unbuttons his shirt - just a button at the top. His skin betrays years of travels, of the sea and the desert and the tropics. The crow's feet in the corners of his eyes are so - kissable. Jon can swear he can feel that half-beard, mostly stubble rubbing against his inner thighs… 

"But what I want to talk to you about is, well, beauty. Imagine me being that sentimental." 

The audience laughs. Blackfish is anything but sentimental but the way he talks about dodos is mesmerising. 

"Dodos were considered lazy and ugly. They were reproached for being the way they were. I'd love to take a good look at the person, and of course it was a cismale, who glanced at a dodo and proclaimed it ugly. I'd be disappointed."

His voice has a rustle to it. The rustle of sheets, of clothes being hastily discarded, of skin against skin. 

A rustle and a crunch. He's _delicious._

"But the truth is dodos weren't meek. They were resilient and feisty and put up a hell of a fight before we wiped them out. We had bullets and cunning. Do you think we spent so much time developing that big brain of ours to be used against dodos? Don't know about you, I'd pick up someone who could kick me in the balls any day. 

"We're living through the sixth extinction, as you well know, I hope. Cyanobacteria once conquered the world so that we may appear and breathe, but now we're making it difficult for any organism to live and breathe. No, I'm not suggesting you all go vegan and start abusing farmers. I'm asking you to think and think well of what you're applying that big bad brain of yours to. 

"Nature is patient but nature is not kind. What if the seventh extinction is the one that lets nature get rid of us. It won't take much effort. It won't leave me disappointed. It won't let anyone forget what we did to dodos. It won't let anyone escape without a thought spared about those flightless birds. They flew, they got back to the ground, they survived through so much. Does anyone here want to be a dodo? Does anyone here put a queer friend, an immigrant into a position of a dodo? Think about it. Think about it well. Are you ready to kill a dodo? Are you ready to take up the enterprise of robbing the world of a magnificent creature whose only sin is that it doesn't resemble you, doesn't abide by your standards of beauty?"

Jon listens to him like he hasn't listened to anyone before. He wants to argue with him and anger him and tease him and drag him to his bedroom and _feel_ him in every way possible and a couple of ways he'd love to try but hasn't had the chance or the right person to do so. 

And it's all about the damned dodos! Jon hasn't ever spared a thought about them but he'd go back to school yet again and study natural history just to get closer to that man whose movements are so to the point, who's so sassy it hurts Jon's face to keep smiling at him. He hasn't smiled so much since he was a young man full of foolish notions of love and loyalty. Since he thought that he invented love - and was wrong like Ptolemy. 

Blackfish leaves some time for questions and of course the first question proves him right. 

"I think the Earth is flat. There's enough evidence…"

"Let me stop you," Blackfish interrupts. "You say you _think_ , but judging from what you say you don't think, in general. You don't think, you're playing at thinking. You're not even good at it. Oh, I can hear people say that I just dismiss people like you, but I'm not wasting my breath trying to explain something that's been proved and explained back in the Ancient Greece."

"People like you are a disgrace! You're insulting God…"

"I say you're insulting the Almighty. You must have failed to hear a word I said, so the question is, what the fuck are you doing here?"

There are good questions, though, and there are book recommendations and Shakespeare quotes… It's Shakespeare quotes that do Jon in.

He moves to walk out of the audience, slow and heavy, in need of a wank and a few hours of nature documentaries followed by another wank. Here's a man he can fantasise and dream about. He's old enough to _not_ have a crush on someone from TV, but _fuck_ , Brynden Tully is hot. 

Jon is moving, he is, putting one foot in front of the other, and he's almost out. 

Jaime Lannister is asking questions about the… Jon can't hear. He knows that Brienne is trying to tug him away because…

"Pity," Blackfish replies to something. No one has any right to say _pity_ like that. Like it's not pity at all, like it's a minor inconvenience. Knowing Jaime and his love for the Galapagos Islands (for some reason that Jon isn't privy to) it must have something to do with those but…

"Jon Connington, am I right?" 

Jon turns around and forces himself to look at the man his brain is fantasising about without anyone's consent. 

"Read your paper about Prospero. Love the way you think." 

Jon looks at Blackfish very, very well.

"Excuse me?"

"Said I love the way you think."

Suddenly Jaime and Brienne are making everyone, including themselves, leave. 

Blackfish is standing there, handsome, old, a bit older than Jon, and with a squint and a wink and a glint. Human eyes shouldn't be like that. Brynden Tully came too late, long after Jon has settled for something milder and tamer than love with a capital L. 

"I… thank you? Not as good as dodo…"

"Hey, I said everything I wanted about dodos, and I can talk about other things too. For example," Brynden takes a step towards Jon. It's such a simple movement, it's not like being a silver prince or a hero or a poet - it's like being a human, having a body, being unafraid of its reactions. It's just a step made by the man whose shirt collar is unbuttoned, whose tie has fallen to the floor, whose skin must be salty and warm and alive and fuck!

"There's a recital in an hour or so. Do you like Afghan music?"

Jon has always fancied himself an educated man, but he's ashamed to realise that he's never spared a thought for Afghanistan, even when he learned about his family's involvement in more colonialist enterprises than he's comfortable with.

"I… know nothing about it." 

"You should. It's awesome. I'd buy you a beer if you come along."

His flirting is flawless, as in, he makes it sound almost scandalous with how casual he's about it.

"And an acquaintance of mine plays really good jazz. We could make it to both events. And I'd buy you two beers."

Jon is a man in his late forties, an established academic, he's wearing a tweed jacket! He shouldn't be swayed by promises of beer and music. 

"And if you dance with me, I'd buy you three additional beers." Blackfish smirks. 

This is five beers, a dance and a concert, no, two concerts to refuse. Jon isn't made of stone. 

Blackfish abandons his tie on the floor and grabs Jon's elbow. That tie will haunt Jon for months, he's sure of it. 

They make it to an ancient hall that goes quiet when Blackfish enters and erupts in music the moment he takes a seat. It's so good, it's better than any sex Jon has had. Brynden oozes warmth and charisma - and unlike Rhaegar he doesn't demand loyalty to make either of those real, so real it's tangible. 

Brynden leans on the chair in front of him. His sleeves are rolled up, exposing strong forearms covered in coarse dark hair. Jon feels his skin tingle just from looking. He should stop looking. He can't help looking. 

Blackfish has such a beautiful profile, such an attentive expression, he's so hot, he's so hot, he's so hot. 

They make it to a pub. Jon should know the pub, he's sure he does, but the world seems new and unexplored. Brynden buys him dark stout when Jon fails to answer which beer he likes. The thing is, he doesn't like any beer-related drinks that much, but he'd drink it, he has a craving for dark stout. 

The band appears. It's Jaime fucking Lannister and Brienne fucking Tarth. And a few of their friends, apparently. Brienne is wearing sequined wide leg pants. Jaime is playing the electric guitar. There's a peculiar device on his stump - he lost his hand in some accident that Jaime refuses to talk about. Brienne is glowing, she's larger than life, literally and figuratively, and she starts singing and dancing. She's in her element, her voice is so lovely. How much has Jon been missing out on because he's been brooding like a teenager?

Brynden delivers all the promised beers. 

"Once you're sufficiently relaxed, I'm going to ask you out for a dance," Brynden promises. Or maybe threatens. Jon hasn't danced in… Has he ever?

"It's Lindy hop, it's all about being unhinged and having fun at one's own expense." Brynden smiles. Or smirks. Whatever he does with that mouth of his. He rasps, he rustles. Jon shouldn't be that easy, but should Jon be anything at this point? 

He downs two more beers and excuses himself. He does need to go to the bathroom and probably give himself a pep talk. If he suddenly sees every bathroom themed porn video he's ever seen, then it's no one's business. 

He returns to Brynden. Brienne is _electrifying._

 _Of all the boys_ , she sings.

 _Of all the boys,_ she insists.

 _Of all the boys, boys, boys,_ she keeps going and winks at Jaime who's swooning at her. He's older than an average student and he's been through some tough times, Jon knows that much, but Brienne is swaying her sequined hips.

_Of all the boys I've known and I've known some_

_Until I first met you I was lonesome…_

Brynden smirks at Jon, as if he knows that Jon is so done for. 

"Dance with me, established Shakespearean authority?" He offers his hand. Jon wants that hand in the most intimate places of his thrice damned body. 

"Sure, Mr BBC voice of nature," Jon hears himself say and then he's on the dancefloor, cradled in those strong arms, careful and steady. Those blue eyes follow every movement of Jon's face.

"Hey, you don't have to…"

"Shut up and dance, mister," Jon rasps. He's got nothing left to lose. He's never danced but he follows Blackfish's movements easily and carelessly. Maybe he's making a fool of himself, but Brynden's eyes get darker and his smirk, firmer. 

And they are dancing. Well, Blackfish is dancing and Jon pretends to be dancing but he must be quite good at it if his partner's eyes are anything to go by. 

Brynden doesn't buy him more drinks, but Jon is unhinged and he buys Brynden more drinks. 

"Ok, lover boy, time to get you home."

Jon's heart breaks a bit more. 

"I am a grown man and you're too hot for it to be legal!" Jon retorts. 

"Fuck! Damn your tweed jacket and clever articles about Prospero." 

Blackfish helps Jon back to his flat. 

"If I'm back here in the morning, leaning on that lamppost, would it be ok?" Blackfish asks carefully. "Will you behave like a fully grown man? Because I like you, Jon, and I don't like dating people younger than me."

"I am younger than you," Jon says slyly.

"Yes, but five-ten years is alright and I get a feeling that you're being too young. Have I misstepped?" He looks so worried. Jon grabs his collar - and sobs. It all spills out of him right by his doorstep, after just a few beers.

"I hate him," Brynden says in the end. "I hate him so much. He hurt you and he didn't even know what a treasure he had…" He leans in and kisses Jon's forehead. "Will you get into bed on your own?"

Jon has sobered up while crying and weeping and spreading his snort all over Brynden's shirt. 

"I will. I'm sorry. I swear I can… I…"

"I was too rude. I was just plain rude. I'm sorry. Fuck, I imagined it differently."

"Don't imagine anything concerning me. I'm…"

"You're going to bed. Can I wait for you here tomorrow? I'm staying here for a few days."

And then he'll be gone, Jon thinks. He'll be gone, off to travel the world and see it and talk about it. He's no Shakespeare, but Shakespeare is fucking dead, and so is Rhaegar, but Brynden is alive. Jon is alive too. He doesn't realise it often enough, does he?

He climbs up the stairs and falls into his bed as soon as he manages to take off _most_ of his clothes. 

In the morning Brynden is leaning on that lamppost, smoking and holding a cup of something that smells of energy and enthusiasm. 

"Brought you coffee. Are you alright?"

"You think I'm too broken, right? Think I can't hold my drink. But the truth is, I haven't felt so alive in a long time."

"I was rude," Blackfish says carefully. "I was rude and inconsiderate."

"Please, say you were too infatuated with my take on Prospero and Ariel that you just couldn't help yourself."

"No need to be sardonic. I was. I am."

He walks Jon to his office. They come by Jaime Lannister serenading Brienne with the help of his younger brother, his lover and a first year who's just too good for this world. 

"Impressive," Blackfish says. 

"Do you like Backstreet boys?" Jon asks.

"I don't know. But it looks good in the context."

They walk in silence for a while.

"What are your thoughts on _The Tempest_?" Jon asks.

"It's all about misplaced loyalty. It's such a bitter story! Everything is wrong there, every relationship there is so wrong! Ariel being graceful and pretty and obeying Prospero without wanting to but being forced to and remaining such a lovely creature through it all! Miranda falling for the first man she sees… Prospero being so imposing and authoritarian - and then stepping up in the end and delivering a speech that makes it impossible to be cross with him. Somehow it was the first play I read and I've been thinking about it ever since."

"What's your favourite book?" Jon asks. He didn't ask Rhaegar, he doesn't think he was all that interested back then. Perhaps he was afraid of the disappointment, of hearing Rhaegar dismiss everything dear to Jon. 

" _On the Origin of Species_ ," Blackfish answers easily. 

"I should have known. It's a… a good choice. I loved it."

"When did you read it?"

"Too young."

"Well… you should read it again," Blackfish shrugs. "Can we have lunch?"

"Yes. Yes, I'd love that."

At first Blackfish just stays for longer than he planned. He works, of course, writes and edits and voices. Jon loves listening to him and watching him work. 

Before long Brynden lives with him and makes him breakfast. They kiss when they wake up and they kiss before they go to sleep. They make love, and it's so - it's perfect. Jon loves Brynden's weight inside of him, loves that ragged face close to his own, loves that stubble between his legs and on his neck and under his ear and on his lips. He loves being inside Brynden too. He loves holding him and caring for him and making him tea. He never wants him to leave. 

"Maybe you should come with me," Brynden says one Sunday morning when they are lazing in bed. "Travel with me. Or maybe I should just fucking stay in one place long enough…"

Jon is too happy and too sleepy to make a decision but he likes the sound of it. He'd love to travel and he'd love to stay where he is… 

He travels to the places Brynden is filming at and Brynden always comes back to him. Brynden teaches him to swim. Jon doesn't want to swim without Brynden. "The ocean is just not the same," Jon says. 

"Well, then you should marry me and follow me into the sea," Brynden says serenely. 

Jon does. He travels back and forth, he teaches and he learns. He's happy. He invented love and reinvented it and perfected it. It works now. It just needed to get its sealegs back. 

**Author's Note:**

> Ofc the inspiration for Brynden is David Attenborough. He's just a lot sassier.


End file.
